She calls them viboras, the men who deny her stature as one of the world's best accordionists. She lives here, in San Antonio, and she doesn't have a car and is worried about her taxes. Eva has played in New York City, and yet no one in San Antonio seems to want to pay her what she deserves. Enough to live on. The other day Eva played me a new composition, it's called Eco de Mujer. The song is haunted, a polka-tango-blues of a woman's pain and loneliness, betrayal and it sounds exactly like when my mother used to cry at the clothesline under the hot Texas sky. Like she was on fire and there was nowhere for her to go -- except to hang up more of my father's workshirts. My mother listened to Lydia Mendoza. I listen to Eva Ybarra. On Thursday evening, I finally get to read from my novel, with her accordion accompanying me. Though it is really Eva, her music, and that voice of hers that I wish I could put down on paper: That voice made of hard, dusty, gravelly,...

It's true, San Anto is puro-party . Someone somewhere tonight is celebrating something , and I'm invited. But this week, I'm not goin no-where. It's Fiesta!, the biggest ten-day pachangalooza you'll ever see, and frankly, I'm tired of dancing on my grave. Let me explain. On April 21, 1836, the Texan rebels - led by General Sam Houston, defeated the Mexicans at the Battle of San Jacinto. It was a massacre. (Sweet revenge for the preceeding Anglo deaths at the Alamo and Goliad). And of course, there was a woman involved. There is a legend about a Yellow Rose - whom my friend Denise McVea has researched extensively, and it's a wet-dream myth about a mulatta whore in Mexican General Santa Anna's bed seducing and betraying him for the Anglo Texans - and she's discovered the origin of this myth. I've always been repulsed by this story, as have most women... But it's party-time now, and the past is pasado , right? Yes. And no. I think, a...

On April 21st, 1836, the Anglo Texans, after the Alamo and Goliad massacres, overwhelmed the Mexican forces led by General Santa Anna at the battlefield of San Jacinto. The Republic of Texas was established, and the rest is history. But in San Antonio, the defeat of the Mexicans is celebrated as Fiesta!, a ten-day bacchanalia that brings millions of dollars to this tourist-dependant city known for its margaritas and mariachis. A city comprised of a majority-minority population of brown and black people who still suffer the ramifications of San Jacinto and Anglo dominance in finance, education, city government and every other index you can think of. La gente de San Antonio save their few dollars and spend their cash on the rides, the beer, and the music of Fiesta! Even though they lost the War, their cultura is the reason the city is enriched by them as its leaders continue to impoverish them. San Antonio is one of the poorest cities in the country, one of the most polluted, with ...